Click to confirm you are 18+

Squib Ep.25 - Painful Imagery

ButonflyJan 31, 2019, 11:35:46 AM

(Start at the beginning here)

The thin pool of water swirled cloudy in the pan but as Squib stared, the hazy form of an image began to clear. It was confusing at first, dark shapes and shadows too blurry to make any sense of, but within seconds the outlines and definition of familiar objects began to take form. Squib found himself staring at an agreeable pallet of colours, the sodden earthen tones of mud and marsh water, the deep green brown of trees, the vines, moss, and lichen he’d contended with every day of his life since he was born. Only the perspective seemed strange, not from the ground in which he was used to, but up off it, as though in a tree, or caught suspended in the air.

The image began to move, the swamp whizzing by at abnormal speed. It lifted, rising higher into the air so that the width and breadth of the swamp spanned off to the horizon in every direction. The sky sat heavy with the weight of crowding clouds, bulbous gray shapes burdened with the threat of storm. They covered the swamp, and stretched rolling out to the distant north, south, and west. Eastward, where the swamp met the mountains, the storm clouds gathered thickest. Their clustered shapes becoming outlined by rare pulses of lightning somewhere deep within the storms heart.

The scrying eye of the dish flew on, moving eastward, drawing closer to the center of the storm, bearing toward the focal point of the drama. The fringes of the swamp approached, the distinct line of greenery and rock clear from the aerial view. The eye of the image slowed for nothing and yet still captured a scraggly looking cluster of humanoids walking westward beneath it’s gaze, one hulking Lizardman among them. Herule hissed, acknowledging his recognition of an event, denoting his displeasure at somehow being apart of it all. It drew Squib’s attention away toward the Witch, his face marked with his own look of descent. She reached out and slapped him, pushing his face back toward the dish, and pointing with one long boney finger, “Look!”

Annoyed though he was, Squib found himself tracking the images once more, Herule and Bandana still locked on with the same fascination. Tree tops gave way to craggy cliffs, rock, and slips of shale. Scatterings of Orcs began to appear spotted throughout the canyons. Groups of three or four, lightly armored, and about the business of scouts, Squib thought. As much as Squib detested Orcs there seemed no time to dwell as the image came upon a much larger camp. It was built into a quarry that must have housed hundreds of the brutal task masters. He took in what he could, curiosity causing him to wonder at the intimate details of a place he’d been careful to avoid, but there seemed little time to study as the image descended rapidly toward the earth.

The ground came rushing toward them so fast everyone was shaken from the illusion of vertigo. Rock surrounded them now, darkness consuming most of what there was to see. Firelight flew past at regular intervals, the interior of a tunnel, a cave, and once again Herule stammered through mumbled words of his Lizardman tongue. The tunnel opened to a broader cavern, the interior workings of a mine on clear display. The sight of Gray goblins became apparent, blending in with the dim environment but busy under the heel of Orc slavers. The presence of the Orcs was more obvious, two or three score busy labouring with the might of their brutish bloodline. The image pushed on, through the wall of rock in which they worked, down along a crack of which no humanoid could enter, and into a chamber that lay on the other side.

That’s when Squib noticed it. With the Orcs and Goblins behind, there had been a third presence in the scene. Something not visible to the eye, but there all the same. Now, in the dark of the room, lit shallowly by a faint shard of firelight, the makings of a heavy double door, cast in bronze, inlaid with markings Squib could not hope to understand. Another light shone, a hairpin crack of green that ran the length of the doors from floor to ceiling. It illuminated the chamber and washed away whatever presence the firelight attempted to impose. That’s when Squib heard it, a sound that was not so like a sound at all. More of a feeling that one had to associate with uncomfortable things. The twisting of bone, the scraping of the joint between jaw and skull once the cartilage has been stripped away, the groan of a willow that had suddenly given up life and peeled four ways down the middle, the squeal of a silkworm that had been squeezed between fingers so piercing that it had found a voice box where previously none had existed.

Squib had the overwhelming feeling to pull away as fear gripped tightly and screamed at him to flee, but the Witch was suddenly right behind him, blocking his path, and holding his head so that he couldn't look away. The image moved in, approaching the door so that had Squib been there, he could have reach out to touch it. Nobody could, nor wanted to of course, but that didn't stop whatever was on the other side from doing the same. The sounds reached a crescendo, becoming nothing but a ghale of noise. The door vanished, replaced by a flash of green energy that burned the silhouette of a being onto their eyes. Ribs, skull, bone, dry and biting, covered in taught leathery flesh, draped in relics and finery from an ancient past, wide pitless sockets, alive with energy and not much else. With the image came a sense of dread, a toll of death, none of it natural, none of it good.

There was pain, the reaching of a hand into Squib’s chest, tearing at his soul like something might try to tear through his ribs to get at his heart. All four fell back, a squawk from Squib and a scream from Bandana. The pan jumped, untouched, all images gone and the water turning suddenly foul smelling and tepid. Squib kicked his way free of the Witch who, for the first time since the ordeal began, allowed him to move under the freedom of his will. He found a piece of unoccupied ground at the edge of the canopy and stared back at the Witch, drawing his hood up, hunched and brooding.

“Now you see,” The Witch said as she climbed stiffly back to her feet.

Bandana sat herself up, one hand on her chest, visibly pained by the experience. Her words came labored, her breath stricken in her throat, “See what exactly?” She asked.

“You’ve seen what’s coming.” The Witch replied.

“The curse from the earth,” Herule added, his thought leavened from his previous experience.

“It comes to master us all.” The Witch replied scathingly for Herule.

There came an ungodly boom of thunder and a flash of ill coloured light. As the rain continued to pelt down on the canvas above, all eyes were drawn suddenly to the east. In the sky reaching high into the storm filled heavens, a familiar glow of green energy cast its unique shade of dread and foreboding unto the world.

“Nope! No it doesn't.” Squib burst, “Squib’s finished!” He turned on the Witch and thrust out his hand. “Powder now, deal’s a deal, you pay, me go!” And everything else be damned.